1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for personalization of integrated circuit (I.C.) microchip cards.
Known identification cards include a microchip, the memory of which is programmable with personalized data unique to a particular user of the card, and also a magnetic stripe, which can be encoded with corresponding data. Additionally, the card may also be traditionally embossed or printed with human-readable information.
Commercially and economically viable systems for implementing the personalization of these cards are necessarily required to operate smoothly and continuously to produce an optimum number of personalized cards per unit time.
However, the volume of data to be programmed into the microchip and/or the complexity of the programming required can vary considerably for different cards and consequently the time required to program each microchip can typically vary between 10 and 60 seconds, thereby resulting in irregular flow of cards through the system, thus reducing the card output.